Saddam executes 60 Iraqi officers

The Scotsman ^ | Thu 27 Mar 2003 | Paul Gallagher

[frosty snowman]

Saddam executes 60 Iraqi officers

PAUL GALLAGHER

SADDAM Hussein has executed 60 army officers and replaced them with some of his most fanatical supporters to dissuade soldiers from deserting in the face of allied attack, according to an exiled Iraqi general.

Mohammed Nafee, who was a commander in Saddam’s forces in the Iran-Iraq war, claims the purge of the army higher ranks took place at the weekend. He has contacted Iraqi military sources in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, who passed on news of the mass executions.

Mr Nafee said the commanding officers of army units considered most likely to surrender were ordered to be removed from their posts and killed. The officers were colonels and captains in Saddam’s regular army. Some were replaced with members of the Saddam Fedayeen militia, otherwise known as Saddam’s Commandos, or his "brigade of martyrs".

Fedayeen militiamen have been paraded as suicide fighters through Baghdad in recent weeks, dressed entirely in white, the colour of self-sacrifice in Islam.

Led by Saddam’s elder son, Uday, they are among the most feared elements of the dictator’s machinery of government.

Mr Nafee, who fled Iraq five years ago and has settled with his family in Edinburgh, said: "The soldiers in the army are very frightened. I am told that more than 60 army officers were executed to cull deserters.

"The regular army has been told that if they don’t fight, they will be shot. More than 1,000 members of Saddam Fedayeen have been attached to army units to prevent them surrendering. The soldiers can’t do anything until they are sure they will be safe because they remember from 1991, when the uprising against Saddam resulted in the deaths of thousands of Iraqi people. They can’t test the situation because it is too dangerous if they get it wrong."

Mr Nafee said members of the Fedayeen had no option but to fight because they were too closely associated with the Iraqi dictator.

"These people are given great benefits in terms of money and power. They can do what they like in Iraq and get away with it," Mr Nafee added. "They know that when Saddam goes, they have no future in Iraq so they must fight to save his regime."

[tob2]

Or perhaps they will all get tired of being sacrificed to saddam's unholy cause. When I pray for the safety of the coalition troops, I also pray the enemy get tired of saddam and help us liberate the people of Iraq.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

I do pray like you do, for the enemy to turn on Saddam, for the enemy to be wrought with confusion, for the enemy to have more desire to live for the future, than die for Saddam.

[Pete'sWife]

I believe he's been dead since "Opening Day."

These orders are being given by his remaining staff of wannabees, who believe Iraq will win the war, and they'll be the "New, Improved Saddam."

It'll never work.

[section9]

Nonsense. Hussein is dead. This is inertia. It is another sign of the brutality of the Hussein regime. They don't know how to do anything else, so they are falling back on what they do know what to do.

I saw the Al Jazeera video the other day. It was not the work of a fanatical group that went wild. I'm convinced that the people who did what they did had done it before and knew what they were doing. What happened to the soldiers of the 105 mech is what happens to average Iraqi citizens if they don't cooperate with the whims of the Iraqi government.

The news that sixty officers were shot actually tells me that Saddam is still alive. Combine this with the assault of the "technicals" on Third Squadron, Seventh Cav last night. These are exactly the kind of things that a military amateur would do. Saddam waltzes around in a military uniform and does not leave the war to his professional officers. He cannot because that would give the General Staff corps too much political power. Of such things are coups made.

Saddam is said to have remarked: "My enemies want to kill me, but I kill them first, because I know that they want to kill me before they even know it."

Stalin was the same way, you know. Naturally, he did not suffer fools gladly, or even friends. So many general staff officers were killed in the Red Army purges that it had a baleful influence on the Red Army as an institution. It took the German invasion to have the young leaders in the Red Army step forward. Even then, the NKVD was kept around for a dollop of "courage" now and again.

One thing that needs to be emphasized: the difference between this war and Operation Barbarossa are simple and critical: the Iraqis do not have a widespread native military supply and production system. They aren't turning out T-72's in Takrit. Further, they do not have vast stretches of steppe to fall back on. They don't have a strategic rear. We have jumped into their strategic rear. We are operating in their north and in their west, and I suspect that we are there in greater strength than we are aware of.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[grumple]

1 little 2 little 3 little dead guys 4 little 5 little 6 little dead guys 7 little 8 litttle 9 little dead guys let's kill another 10 more

ahhh 1 little 2 little...oh sorry got carried away

[aristeides]

Saddam continues to imitate Stalin.

[MizSterious]

You might be right. I don't for a minute believe Hussein is the only "evil one" in that government--I'm sure plenty more were ready and willing to take his place, and most were probably schooled by Hussein or his evil spawn. They'd probably do a lot of things the same way he would have.

[Dr.Deth]

So here I am, sitting, wondering how I too can achieve those blissful liberal thought processes that allow people at DU to view the Iraq war this way.

My best guess <------

[Flint]

I just hope that when the population starts killing off the Saddam Fedayeen that we get our humanitarian asses out of the way and let them take care of it.

[aristeides]

Maybe this is Saddam's successor's way of proving to people that Saddam is still alive.